After publication. The first month.
Quint has been out for about three weeks now and the response has been amazing. The book got a prime window in Waterstone’s flagship store in Piccadilly and they give it great backing from their booksellers naming it their book choice. The Times announced it as their Book Of The Month (that blew me away) and the Irish Independent called it a “literary miracle”.
Audio and electronic sales have been good, the book sales the best I’ve ever had for a hardback and the critical reviews are better than I could have imagined. I ventured to London for a book signing and was featured on BBC Radio 4 and RTE Radio One. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy! For a book that’s had very little publicity I’m very proud of its reception.
Waterstone’s asked me to do a piece for their blog and it was then that I had to go back in time and drag through my emails to find out when I had actually written the book.
Weirdly enough, and to my own surprise, I had told my agent about it first in 2012! By that time, I told him, I was a third of the way through and we put it to HarperCollins in 2013 and signed the contract in 2014 as part of a two-book deal with a publication date of 2019.
ISBN’s were created, publication announced, a placeholder with random details and page numbers put up on Google all ahead of time. Then the lawyers stepped in and publication stopped.
After many years the Benchley estate decided the time was right to allow other works related to JAWS to go ahead and we got our permission in 2022 to publish for the 50th anniversary of JAWS in Feb 2024. And he we are.
An annoying thing is that I’ve had people import the book to the US (and tell me so) because as yet there is no set US release and that has confused some. Yes, despite being available in Canada, Australia and the rest of the world, Quint doesn’t have a US release yet.
Yet.
And I’m not allowed to say why. I may even get into trouble for talking about it. Let’s be mysterious enough and say that I know the reason.
I might be able to say a couple of words and that should be OK. Hopefully.
Universal. Fiftieth.
That should do.
What I’m saying (and not saying) is just as the timing for the hardback was for the 50th anniversary of the novel there are powers that decide these things outside myself and publishers and they have many sleeves with many cards up them. Timing is everything.
